The Pakistani government blames the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for a bomb attack at a district courthouse that killed 12 people, acting with the support of Kabul and India. In response, Afghanistan halted all trade, including medical imports, with its neighbour. Meanwhile, a UN report warns that the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is getting worse, with repatriated Afghan refugees living in extreme poverty and 90 per cent of families experiencing hunger.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) – Afghanistan has announced that it will not resume trade with Pakistan following yesterday's attack in Islamabad. Medicine imports have also been halted, the Taliban said, while most of the country's population lives below the poverty line.

Pakistan’s Home Affairs minister, while stating that authorities are "looking into all aspects" of the blast, blamed "Indian-backed elements and Afghan Taliban proxies" for yesterday’s blast. The latter claim singles out the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has been primarily responsible for the increase in terrorist attacks in Pakistan in recent years.

The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan in 2021 galvanised the TTP, whose goal is to impose an Islamic emirate in Pakistan modelled after the Afghan one.

Yesterday's attack outside an Islamabad district court killed 12 people, raising multiple issues.

Despite several security operations in border regions to eliminate terrorist groups linked to the TTP, the latter is still capable of organising attacks in the capital, which, like several other urban centres, was considered relatively safe.

The TTP has denied any involvement, while a breakaway faction, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, initially claimed responsibility, but this was later denied by the group's commander.

This group has a contentious relationship with the TTP. It split off in 2014, choosing the Afghan province of Nangarhar as its base of operations, only to rejoin the TTP in 2020. Recent statements show that the latter is not a unified entity, but a collection of militias that sometimes pursue actions independently.

In 2022, the leader of the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, known as Abdul Wadi, was killed in Afghanistan.

The latest attack in Islamabad followed an attack on a military school in Wana, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the epicentre of violence and clashes between the Pakistani army and the Taliban.

According to Pakistani authorities, the attackers who stormed the school (where hundreds of students were evacuated) sought to repeat the 2014 school attacks in Peshawar.

At a press conference, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, First Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs of Afghanistan said that, “In order to safeguard national dignity, economic interests, and the rights of our citizens, Afghan traders should minimize their trade with Pakistan and seek alternative transit routes.”

To highlight this point, he added that, “if traders continue to import or export goods through Pakistan after this notice, the Islamic Emirate will not address any problems that arise and will not respond to complaints.”

During the same press conference, acting Minister of Commerce and Industry Nooruddin Azizi said that the month-long closure of the Torkham crossing had cost Afghan traders approximately US$ 200 million.

Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan escalated into open warfare in early October, when Islamabad launched a series of attacks, including the launch of drones against the capital, Kabul.

Cross-border clashes followed, with Qatar mediating on 19 October, but a definitive solution has eluded the two countries, and experts say de-escalation does not appear to be in sight.

Meanwhile, living conditions for Afghans continue to be dire. In recent years, to pressure the Taliban to end the TTP attacks (which Kabul claims it has no power to stop), Pakistan has expelled millions of Afghan refugees who had found refuge in Pakistan, particularly after 2021. Approximately 4.5 million people have returned since September 2023.

According to a report released today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), overlapping crises (chronic poverty, large-scale involuntary repatriations, climate shocks, natural disasters, declining aid, and the Taliban-imposed exclusion of women from public life) have created a perfect storm that is worsening poverty across Afghanistan, to the point that 9 out of 10 families suffer from hunger.

More than half of the families who returned to Afghanistan forgo medical care to afford food, while over 90 per cent have incurred debts, ranging from US$ 373 to US$ 900, while the average monthly salary in Afghanistan is US$ 100.

Unemployment is estimated at 80 per cent to 95 per cent for repatriated families, one in four of which is headed by women, while approximately 30 per cent of children are forced to work.

Seventy-five per cent of returning families live in rural areas, where rent costs have jumped by 100 per cent to 300 per cent in some regions.

• pakistan
• afghanistan
• india
• border conflict
• taliban
• trade
• blockade
• tehrik-i taliban pakistan
• ttp